Branchusts
Golden Bird
The toy
becomes the
aesthetic archetype
As if
some patient
peasant God
had rubbed and
rubbed
the Alpha and
Omega
of Form
into a lump of
metal
A naked
orientation
unwinged unplumed
-the ultimate
rhythm
has lopped the
extremities
of crest and claw
from
the nucleus flight
The
absolute act
of art
conformed
to continent
sculpture
-bare as the brow
of Osiris-
This breast of
revelation
An
incandescent curve
licked by
chromatic flames
in labyrinths of
reflections
This gong
of polished
hyperaesthesia
shrills with brass
as the aggressive
light
strikes
its significance
The
immaculate
conception
of the inaudible
bird
occurs
in gorgeous
reticence ...
|
Golden
Bird Bronze, stone, and wood, 1919/20; h. 217.8 cm
(with base) from The
Art Institute of Chicago
|
This
drawing of Constantin
Brancusi is done by Mina Loy
around 1924. It is from The Last Lunar Baedeker
edited
by Roger L. Conover (Highlands, NC: Jargon Society, 1982).
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